Carnival Hill (The Harlequin Crew Book 3)

by Caroline Peckham

  “Be still my beating vagina,” I gasped, fanning myself like I was a fancy lady. “I do believe we have an accord, Mr Stone.”

  Rick twitched a grin at me and I fell into step with him as we headed for the beach and the waves.

  His arm brushed against mine and I closed my eyes as the sun washed over us and the sea lapped against the shore, certain for a moment that I really was home and knowing for once that the smile on my face was one hundred percent real.

  ***

  I woke suddenly in the night, disoriented at first as I blinked at Maverick's suite and let the memories of yesterday and last night settle in my brain while I took in where I was. There was a dull ache between my thighs which had plenty to do with all the rough sex we’d had, and my body felt bruised and tender in the best possible way. But that wasn't what had woken me.

  Maverick groaned in his sleep beside me, tossing and turning violently as some nightmare pressed in on him. A sheen of sweat clung to his skin and his brow was furrowed as a single word escaped his lips.

  "Stop."

  "Rick," I breathed, shifting towards him with my heart pounding as I tried to rouse him from whatever horrors had crept up on him while he slept.

  He thrashed in the bed more violently and I reached out for him, my hand landing on his shoulder as I made a move to shake him. But the moment my skin met with his, a furious roar escaped him and I shrieked in surprise as he whirled on me.

  His eyes snapped open but they were blank and void of any signs of the boy I'd grown up with and as his hand locked around my throat, a scream of fright escaped me.

  Maverick threw his weight at me, my back slamming down against the mattress as his grip on my throat tightened painfully. He cut off my oxygen as he reared over me, pinning me down with the sheer bulk of his body.

  Panic took me captive as I struggled beneath him, my fingernails biting into his hand where he held me and suddenly the darkness in his gaze lifted a little like he’d just realised where he was.

  He lurched back suddenly, releasing me as he scrambled to the far side of the bed, looking like he was about to bolt on me.

  "Fuck…Rogue," he groaned, his hand opening and closing into a fist as he stared at it like it had just betrayed him. "I'm sorry. Fuck!" he bellowed the last word and my pulse scattered, but I didn't retreat any further from him because as terrifying as that had been, I knew it had nothing on whatever the hell was going on inside his head right now. His eyes were wild and he looked haunted by some ghost which had visited him in his nightmares.

  "It's me," I said softly. "I'm here. It's okay." I reached out for him, but he flinched back like the idea of me touching him was repulsive.

  "Don't touch me," he snarled, making a move to get out of the bed and I quickly withdrew my hand.

  "It's okay. I won't touch you," I promised quickly. "Do you want me to turn the lights on-"

  "No," he snapped, scraping his hands through his hair and glancing around the dark room like he expected to see something else lurking in the shadows. Or someone else.

  "You can tell me, Rick," I promised him but he just shook his head, his hand fisting in his hair as he looked about three seconds away from running.

  "When I was nineteen, I slept rough for a couple of months," I said in a low voice, coaxing him back to me by offering him a taste of my own pain, wanting to show him that I understood. That I knew what it was like to feel as empty and lost as he looked right now. "It sucked in all the ways you would imagine. I was hungry a lot and there was no bathroom. The nights were long and cold...but that wasn't the worst thing about it. The worst was how tired I felt all the time. But how impossible I found sleep too. Closing my eyes every night felt like running a gauntlet. Like turning my back on the monsters I knew were lurking in the shadows and just hoping they wouldn't find me in the dark."

  Rick watched me in silence for several long seconds, his eyes roaming over me like he was weighing me, judging me and I wasn't sure I'd ever wanted to be found good enough as I did in that moment.

  He shifted towards me and I gasped at the sudden movement as he prowled into my personal space, the warmth of his breath brushing over my lips.

  "Don't touch me," he warned again in a low growl that sent a shiver running down my spine and I nodded as he advanced on me, forcing me to back up as the breadth of his body engulfed me in his shadow.

  I dropped back against the pillows with my heart pounding as he reared over me, his hand settling beside my head as he dominated my space and I bunched my fingers into fists to stop myself from breaking my promise to him.

  "I told you about the men Luther sent to punish me night after night," he breathed, his face shrouded in shadow so that his expression was hidden from me.

  I nodded slowly, unsure if he would even really be able to see the movement, but he went on so I had to assume he had.

  "That wasn't the worst of it though. The beatings, the punishments, all of that was nothing really. Not compared to the place I went when they were done with me."

  He reached out with his free hand and touched a fingertip to my lips, tracing the seam of them while his posture remained rigid above me and I hardly even dared to breathe. This was on him. I'd made him a promise and I wasn't going to break it, but the small point of contact he'd initiated between us felt like a raging fire burning beneath my skin.

  "They got me transferred into a cell with a monster far worse than them. The kind who saw every spot of light in the dark and devoured it completely."

  Maverick's finger drew a line down the side of my neck before tracing over the fabric of my shirt and between the valley of my breasts, my breath hitching with every slow inch he passed as I waited for him to go on.

  "His name was Peter Krasinski."

  I swallowed thickly, blinking against the dark as Maverick withdrew his hand again, drawing back from me and leaving me there on the bed beneath him. I could feel him pulling away before he even made a physical move to do so and I reached for him, catching his hand in mine and feeling the way he tensed at my touch.

  "Show me," I urged. "If you can't say the words then show me what he did to you."

  Maverick stilled for an endless moment, the shadows seeming to coil around him as the memories of whatever he’d survived in that place took life in the darkness surrounding us. I could feel the ache of them, the pain, the fear, the shame. Something bad had happened to him in there. Something he wasn’t dealing with and had no one to share with. But he could tell me. He could trust me with his secrets and I’d gladly take on whatever haunted him too if that was what he needed.

  Maverick’s gaze raked over me like hot coals searing across my skin before he swallowed thickly, that darkness in his gaze deepening with some decision. He grabbed me roughly and flipped me over, his hand landing in the centre of my spine and his weight drove me down into the mattress as he exerted pressure.

  My heart pounded with uncertainty as he reared over me, the weight of his body driving me into the mattress uncomfortably as he leaned down to speak to me.

  "He used to whisper in my ear before he did it," Maverick breathed, his stubble grazing my flesh as he leaned close to do that same thing to me. "He'd call me a pretty boy. His pretty boy. Then he'd tell me how much he'd been looking forward to seeing me all day. He'd have his filthy cock in his hand while he said it, pumping his fist up and down so that I could hear the movement and know he was priming himself for me."

  I shuddered beneath him as he shifted behind me, keeping me immobilised beneath him while his fingers dragged back and forth across the mattress beside me, imitating that sound, giving me a taste of the pain and fear he'd suffered.

  "Tell me to stop," Maverick growled but I shook my head.

  "I can take it," I insisted in a low voice, my limbs trembling with realisation as I finally understood what had happened to the boy I'd loved. The one who had tried to come after me. The one who had taken the fall for me. This was my fault. All of it. He'd only ended up in that place
because of me and if reliving his nightmares with my body could help him to deal with them, then that was the least I could offer him in penance. "I need to know. And you need to get it out."

  Rick grunted something and his weight lifted from my spine as he withdrew his hand, making me think for a moment that he was backing out of this, but as I made a move to lift up onto my knees, he shoved the shirt I was wearing up and yanked my panties down so that they were bunched around my knees.

  "He never took my pants off properly," he said roughly, twisting the material of my panties in his fist so that my knees were locked together by them. "I hated that. To this day that still haunts me almost as much as the memories of him doing the rest of it. It was that easy. Just yank my pants down and take whatever the fuck he wanted."

  "Rick," I murmured but the pain in my voice clearly wasn't what he wanted to hear, and he gripped the back of my hair in his fist, shoving my face down into the mattress.

  "He didn't like to hear me speak," he snarled, shifting his weight on top of me so that the heavy press of his body drove against my ass and my heart began to race at the thought of what was next, but I didn't try to stop him. I just waited, my fingers fisting the sheets as he hesitated there for a long moment. “He didn’t want me to beg or tell him to stop. He liked to think I wanted it. Convinced himself I loved it. I dunno if that made him feel better about it or if it was more that he hated how disgusted I truly was by him.”

  I expected him to keep going, to pull his pants down and press forward at any second, for the bite of pain I would feel at his rough entry while I let him play out his demons on my flesh and work to banish some of them, but it never came.

  Instead he released his hold on my hair, letting me turn my head to look at him in the dark until my gaze met his and I could feel all of his pain and damage as keenly as my own.

  "Every night for months," he said in a low voice. "Every fucking night after those guards had their fun beating the shit out of me, that monster would force his body onto mine. He'd take and take and leave me more broken every time. But I had one thing he couldn't take from me, beautiful… I had you."

  Maverick's fingers moved to the back of my left thigh where the Damned Men tattoo marked my skin and he blew out a long breath before flipping me over onto my back so that I was looking up at him properly.

  "Tell me you ended him," I growled, tears burning the backs of my eyes which I fought off as fiercely as I could. Not because I didn't want him to see me hurt for him, but because I knew he needed me to be strong in that moment. He needed me to take on this burden and prove to him that it didn't change anything about the way I felt for him.

  "I realised I had to become the strongest man in the room," he said slowly, peeling my panties the rest of the way off as he shucked his boxers off too.

  I took the hem of the shirt I was wearing and tossed it aside to save him the job, my thighs parting for him as he moved between them.

  "I cornered him one morning when we were working in the laundry room together," he said in a measured tone, his eyes lighting at the memory as he locked his gaze with mine. "The guards always left us alone in there and it only took a few small bribes to clear the rest of the inmates out."

  "Tell me," I demanded. "All of it."

  “Does this change things?” he asked, shame colouring his expression and making me hurt for him.

  “Nothing,” I swore, grasping his cheek so he couldn’t turn away from the truth in my eyes and a weight seemed to leave him as he nodded, leaning into my touch. “Tell me what you did to him.”

  Rick smiled this twisted, broken smile that set my heart racing as he leaned down over me to whisper in my ear like we were two lovebirds sharing secrets instead of a pair of fucked up creatures sharing stories of death and survival.

  "I beat the ever-loving fuck out of him. I beat him bloody until he was crying and begging at my feet, I listened to him plead for mercy as he crawled across the ground and sobbed for help.” I shivered beneath him, that dark depraved part of my soul relishing this story and drinking in the details of him taking his vengeance on the monster who’d hurt him. “I kicked him until I felt bones shatter.” Maverick’s eyes lit with the memory and I bit my bottom lip as I listened to every detail with rapt attention. “I smashed his face against one of the dryers until there were no fucking teeth left in his mouth.” Rick hooked his elbow beneath my knee and leaned down over me, his lips almost touching mine as he went on. “I drove my thumbs into his eyes until he was blinded.” I sucked in a breath as he lined his body up with mine and I pushed my fingers into his dark hair, drawing him closer. “And when he was choking on his own blood and praying for death, I locked his head between my hands and broke his fucking neck."

  I moaned as he thrust forward with that announcement, the thick length of his cock driving deep inside me as he leaned down to kiss me so slowly I felt like I was drowning in him.

  He didn't up his pace like I expected him to either, his mouth devouring mine as his body took me hostage in a slow and tortuous rhythm that had me gasping for air.

  “How did you get away with it?” I asked between moans.

  “Luck and a lack of people to give a fuck. The inmates weren’t gonna rat me out and that piece of shit didn’t have anyone on the outside who cared about a thorough investigation, so they did a shit job of looking into it and it was unsolved.”

  “Thank fuck for that.”

  "I would have paid any price for that revenge. His death was so beautifully cathartic. You gave me that strength, beautiful," he groaned in my ear. "Every single day I spent in that hell, you were right there with me, holding my hand in the dark, keeping the last good pieces of me locked away in your keeping. I was lost to the world and everything in it, but I never lost you. You were mine then as much as you are now. And now that I've been given a taste of you, I won't ever give you up. Not until the death I'm waiting on comes and rips me from your arms."

  He kissed me again before I could answer that, the two of us moving together like we were one body, one soul, this single entity reunited after far too long of hungering for each other. And I knew then that he was right. That no matter the fissures which tore me apart inside, no matter the scars I bore or the hurt I'd suffered, I'd always been holding onto him too. Deep in my heart when the nights were darkest, my mind always retreated to the one place I'd ever been able to call home and the four boys who I'd loved with my entire being.

  "I love you, Maverick," I gasped as his mouth moved down my neck and our bodies tangled as one.

  He fell still at my words, lifting his head and meeting my eyes with such weighted emotion that I could barely look at it.

  "I'm yours, beautiful," he replied darkly. "Take me, own me, use me, destroy me. Anything you like, everything you want. Just don't ever leave me again."

  ***

  The speedboat bumped against the jetty hard enough to put a scratch right down the side of it or maybe even knock a hole in it for all I cared.

  Out on Dead Man's Isle I'd only been interested in Rick and making sure he saw the truth of what I felt for him. I needed him to see that none of the fucked-up things we'd survived took anything from what we both were to each other. He had to know what he meant to me.

  But now? Now I was pissed. I was angrier than I had any memory of ever being in my entire life. I felt more rage an injustice over the things Maverick had survived than I had over anything that I'd ever endured myself. And I felt more guilt over it than I had over anything I'd ever been responsible for in my life either. And I was responsible for more than my fair share of messed up shit.

  The Harlequins positioned around the house didn't make any move to stop me as I strode past them towards it, the wind picking up today so that my rainbow hair billowed all around me and my dress whipped around my thighs.

  Mutt marched at my side like he was a dog on his way to war too and I loved that he had my back on this. Because even he knew in his little doggy head that something had to be
done.

  I hammered my fist against the back door as I reached it, fury blinding me to anything aside from my goal. I was going to grab a car, get in it and drive straight over to The Oasis and show Luther fucking Harlequin exactly what I thought of his methods of parenting. Better yet, I was going to take a gun too.

  JJ opened the door, frowning at me in confusion as he tasted the venomous hatred on the air, but I just shoved my way past him. I had something to fucking do.

  Mutt barked in warning as I strode through the house and the sound of voices gave me a five second warning to the guest they were entertaining before I rounded the corner into the kitchen.

  Luther looked up at me from his stool at the breakfast bar as I strode in, half a smile tilting the corner of his lips up just before a scream of fury escaped me and I launched myself at him.

  My fist connected with his face before he'd even realised what was happening and my weight collided with him half a second after that.

  Luther went flying off his chair and I went with him, the two of us crashing to the ground as I lost my shit entirely and started throwing wild punches at him from my position on top of him.

  Luther cursed, snatching my arm into his grasp as he tried to hold me off while Fox and JJ yelled in alarm behind us. But Mutt leapt into the fray before anyone else could manage it, his sharp teeth sinking into Luther's other hand and giving me the opportunity to punch him again.

  Blood smeared my knuckles, and my heart was racing with a blind rage that had overtaken me and all I could think of was destroying the man beneath me. Of reaching into his chest and ripping the sorry excuse for a heart he kept there right out of it so that he wouldn't live a single day longer to inflict fear and torture upon anyone.

  “Get her the fuck offa me before I have to force her off,” Luther demanded, clearly holding back on hitting me because I was a girl or some bullshit. But fuck that. He never cared about that when he ran me out of town and threw me to the wolves.